Autocracy

Is a form of government. In an autocracy, a single person has all legal and political power, and makes all decisions by himself or herself. The person who holds the power is called an autocrat. When there is a monarch ruling a country as an absolute monarchy, this is also called an autocracy. Having an autocratic government does not mean the country is governed well or governed poorly. It is just a description on how it is set up. In modern times, most autocrats gain power as part of a larger nationality, communist, or fascist movement. Once in power, they eliminate all other kinds of authority in the country, such as judges, the legislature, and political parties. An autocracy is a system of government in which a supreme political power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of coup d'tat or mass insurrection). Autocracy is any form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek: ("self") and ("rule"), and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy ("rule by the few") and democracy ("rule by the people"). Like "despot", "tyrant", "strongman" and "dictator", "autocrat" has become a loaded word with a negative value judgment in contemporary English usage. The term autokratr was employed in antiquity to translate the Latin imperator into Greek. It was the primary word used by grecophones to refer to the Roman Emperor during the later Roman Empire through the seventh century CE and continued to be used in the Byzantine period, although it lost favor to Sebasts ("augustus") and Basileus (obscure: prob. "chieftain;" later "king") as synonyms for "emperor".This use remains current in the modern Greek language, where the term is used for anyone holding the title "emperor," regardless of the actual power of the monarch. Comparison with other forms of government Both totalitarianism and military dictatorship, are often identified with, but need not be, autocracy. Totalitarianism is a system where the state strives to control every aspect of life and civil society. It can be headed by a supreme dictator, making it autocratic, but it can have a collective leadership such as a commune or soviet. Likewise, military dictatorships often take the form of "collective presidencies" such as the South American juntas of the late 20th century, meaning that no one person wields supreme power. The term monarchy is only a synonym for autocracy in the case of an absolute monarcy. For this reason, some historical Slavic monarchs, such as Russian Emperors, included the title "autocrat" as part of their official styles, distinguishing them from the constitutional monarchs elsewhere in Europe. Because autocrats need a power structure to rule, it can be difficult to draw a clear line between historical autocracies and oligarchies. Most historical autocrats depended on their nobles, the military, the priesthood or other elite groups.

Authoritarianism Many different forms of authoritarianism have served as the norm in many polities and in most periods from the dawn of recorded history. Tribal chiefs and god-kings often gave way to despots and emperors, then to enlightened monarchs and juntas. Even superficially democratic constitutions or those claiming to be such can allow the concentration of power or domination by strongmen or by small groups of political elites - note the history of the Icelandic Althing. In contrast to the varying manifestations of authoritarianism, more democratic forms of governance as a standard mode of political organization became widespread only after the Industrial Revolution had established modernity. Tyrants and oligarchs bracketed the flourishing of democracy in ancient Athens; and kings and emperors preceded and followed experimentation with democratic forms in the Roman Republic. In the 15th century, Vlad Dracula is credited for being the first ruler of Wallachia and Transylvania to rule by Authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority as well as the administration of said authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and libertarianism. In politics an authoritarian government is one in which political authority is concentrated in a small group of politicians. Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated, and centralized power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime.] Authoritarianism emphasizes arbitrary law rather than the rule of law, it often includes election rigging, political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors, a bureaucracy that sometimes operates independently of rules,which does not properly supervise elected officials, and fails to serve the concerns of the constituencies they purportedly serve. Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of political power, a leadership that is "selfappointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors," the arbitrary deprivation of civil berties, and little tolerance for meaningful opposition. A range of social controls also attempt to stifle civil society, while political stability is maintained by control over and support of the armed forces, a bureaucracy staffed by the regime, and creation of allegiance through various means of socialization and indoctrination. Authoritarian political systems may be weakened through "inadequate performance to demands of the people. Vestal writes that the tendency to respond to challenges to authoritarianism through tighter control instead of adaptation is a significant weakness, and that this overly rigid approach fails to "adapt to changes or to accommodate growing demands on the part of the populace or even groups within the system.Because the legitimacy of the state is dependent on performance, authoritarian states that fail to adapt may collapse. Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a single-party state) or other authority.[2] The transition from an authoritarian system to a more democratic form of government is referred to as democratization. John Duckitt of the University of the Witwatersrand suggests a link between authoritarianism and collectivism, asserting that both stand in opposition to individualism. Duckitt writes that both authoritarianism and collectivism submerge individual rights and goals to group goals, expectations and conformities. Others argue that collectivism, properly defined, has a basis of consensult decision-making, the opposite of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism Totalitarianism is an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control. Building on the work of Yale political scientist Juan Linz, Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:

Authoritarianism and democracy

Authoritarianism and democracy are not fundamentally opposed to one another, it is thus perfectly possible for democracies to possess strong authoritarian elements, for both feature a form of submission to authority. An illiberal democracy (or procedural democracy) is distinguished from liberal democracy (or substantive democracy) in that illiberal democracies lack the more democratic features of liberal democracies, such as the rule of law, an independent judiciary, along with a further distinction that liberal democracies have rarely made war with one another. More recent research has extended the theory and finds that more democratic countries tend to have few Militarized Interstate Disputes causing less battle deaths with one another, and that democracies have few civil wars. Poor democracies tend to have better education, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, access to drinking water, and better health care than poor dictatorships. This is not due to higher levels of foreign assistance or spending a larger percentage of GDP on health and education. Instead, the available resources are more likely to be managed better. Studies suggest that several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) have a stronger and more significant association with democracy than they have with GDP per capita, size of the public sector, or income inequality. A prominent economist, Amartya Sen, has theorized that no functioning country labeled as having a liberal democracy has ever suffered a large-scale famine.This includes democracies that have not been very prosperous historically, like India, which had its last great famine in 1943 and many other large-scale famines before that in the late nineteenth century, all under British rule. (However, some others ascribe the Bengal famine of 1943 to the effects of World War II. The government of India had been becoming progressively more democratic for years. Provincial government had been entirely so since the Government of India Act of 1935.) Refugee crises almost always occur in the least democratic countries. Looking at the volume of refugee flows for the last twenty years, the first eighty-seven cases occurred in most authoritarian countries. Research shows that the democratic nations have much less democide or murder by government. However it should be noted that those were also moderately developed nations before applying liberal democratic policies. Similarly, they have less genocide and politicide Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption: parliamentary systems, political stability, and freedom [13] of the press are all associated with lower corruption. Freedom of information legislation is important for accountability and transparency. The Indian Right to Information Act "has already engendered mass movements in the country that is bringing the lethargic, often corrupt bureaucracy to its knees and changing power equations completely. Of the eighty worst financial catastrophes during the last four decades, only five were in countries labeled as democracies. Similarly, those labeled as "poor democracies" are half as likely as countries labeled as non-democracies to experience a 10 percent decline in GDP per capita over the course of a single year. One study has concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom. The nations with the least amount of terrorism are the most and least democratic nations.

Communist state There has never been a leader of a state who has called his state communist (lower case 'c'). In these states the distinctions between state and party become blurred and there is usually a command economy. Communist states (e.g. states that called themselves socialist states but which some westerners call communist states) have usually modelled their political and economic systems after that of the Soviet Union which in the mid-20th century appeared to them to offer a mechanism for rapid economic development. referred to a system where public ownership of all or most means of production by the Communist partyrun state is deemed necessary to further the interests of the working class; today, a communist state can also, for instance, refer to contemporary China and Vietnam, where a Communist Party-run state exists alongside a mixed economy is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state. Theoretically, "communist state" is a contradictio in termins as a commun In practice, communist states do not refer to themselves as communist states. They do this not to disguise the fact that the ruling party is communist, but rather because they do not consider themselves to be a communist society at present. Instead, they constitutionally identify themselves as socialist states or workers' states. The primary goal of these states, which also explains their official name, is to guide their respective countries in the process of building socialism, ultimately leading to communism.ist society as defined by both Marxists and anarcho-communists is in principle stateless. Communist states may have several legal political parties, but the communist party is usually granted a special or dominant role in government, often by statute or under the constitution. Consequently, the institutions of the state and of the communist party become intimately entwined, such as in the development of parallel institutions. In the 20th century, most communist states adopted planned economies. However, there were exceptions: The Soviet Union during the 1920s and late 1980s and Yugoslavia after World War II allowed limited markets and a degree of worker self-management, while China, Vietnam and Laos introduced farreaching market reforms after the 1980s. In the 21st century, China and Vietnam have allowed a mixed economy to develop. is one ruled by a single political party following the principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is also called Marxist-Leninist state, Marxist-Leninist government, Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. The usage of the term communist state sharply contrasts with Marxist political theory, according to which "communism" is the final stateless stage of society following the overthrow of capitalism and the "withering away" of socialism. Therefore these states called themselves socialist states.

Confederation
confederation in modern political terms is a permanent union of political units for common action in relation to other units. Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues (such as defense, foreign affairs, or a common currency), with the central government being required to provide support for all members. The nature of the relationship among the states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states, the central government, and the distribution of powers among them is highly variable. Some looser confederations are similar to intergovernment organizations, while tighter confederations may resemble federations. In a non-political context, confederation is used to describe a type of organization which consolidates authority from other autonomous (or semi-autonomous) bodies. Examples include sports confederations or confederations of pan-European trades unions. In Canada, the word confederation has an additional, unrelated meaning. "Confederation" refers to the process of (or the event of) establishing or joining the Canadian federal state. Articles of Confederation, Formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid 1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. Even if not yet ratified, the Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Indian relations. Nevertheless, the weak government created by the Articles became a matter of concern for key nationalists. On March 4, 1789, the Articles were replaced with the U.S. Constitution The new Constitution provided for a much stronger national government with a chief executive (the president), courts, and taxing powers.

Corporatocracy
A corporatocracy is a system of government in which a corporation, group of corporations or entities run by corporations control the direction and governance of a country, either directly or indirectly. Although there officially are no true corporatocracies in the world, many people often criticize governments for being de facto corporatocracies that are heavily influenced by corporations. Proving that a government actually is a corporatocracy likely would be difficult, however, so this concept is mainly discussed in the circles of critics, political analysts and conspiracy theorists. Economist Jeffrey Sachs described the US as a corporatocracy in his book The Price of Civilization.He suggested that it arose from four trends: weak national parties and strong political representation of individual districts, the large U.S. military establishment after World War II, big corporate money financing election campaigns, and globalization tilting the balance away from workers. Many governments in places where the economic systems are based on free enterprise have been accused of being corporatocracies. In fact, many corporations contribute significant amounts of money to certain political candidates and causes. In many people's minds, this creates a sense of debt that the politician is obliged to pay back in the form of political favors.

Consociational State
Consociationalism was discussed in academic terms by the political scientist Arend Lijphart. However, Lijphart has stated that he had "merely discovered what political practitioners had repeatedly and independently of both academic experts and one another invented years earlier". John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary trace consociationalism back to 1917, when it was first employed in the Netherlands. Indeed, Lijphart draws heavily on the experience of the Netherlands in developing his argument in favour of the consociational approach to ethnic conflict regulation. The Netherlands, as a consociational state, was between 1857 and 1967 divided into four non-territorial pillars, Calvinist, Catholic, socialist, and liberal, although until 1917 there was a plurality ('first past the post') electoral system rather than a consociational one. In their heyday, each comprised tightly-organised groups, schools, universities, hospitals and newspapers, all divided along a pillarised social structure. The theory, according to Lijphart, focuses on the role of social elites, their agreement and cooperation, as the key to a stable democracy. Consociational State- is a state which has major splits along ethnic, religious, cultural, or linguistic lines in a way that keeps one group from dominating the others, but which has still a functioning government because the rulers consult with the leaders of each of the distinct groups. -a state which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, yet nonetheless manages to remain remarkably stable, due to consultation between the elites of each of its major social groups. A consociational democracy often elects a "grand coalition" government which incorporates the main segments of the society and maintains rules or conventions of proportional representation and of proportional employment in the public sector. In certain matters it guarantees community autonomy and constitutional vetoes for minorities. Consociationalism is a form of government involving guaranteed group representation, and is often suggested for managing conflict in deeply divided societies. It is often viewed as synonymous with power-sharing, although it is technically only one form of power-sharing. Consociationalism is often seen as having close affinities with corporatism; some consider it to be a form of corporatism while others claim that economic corporatism was designed to regulate class conflict, while consociationalism developed on the basis of reconciling societal fragmentation along ethnic and religious lines. The goals of consociationalism are governmental stability, the survival of the power-sharing arrangements, the survival of democracy, and the avoidance of violence.

Demarchy
-is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition (lot) from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens. These groups, sometimes termed "policy juries", "citizens' juries", or "consensus conferences", deliberately make decisions about public policies in much the same way that juries decide criminal cases. Demarchy, in theory, could overcome some of the functional problems of conventional representative democracy, which is widely subject to manipulation by special interests and a division between professional policymakers (politicians and lobbyists) vs. a largely passive, uninvolved and often uninformed electorate. According to Australian philosopher John Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process.

Major Forms of Government

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